ktel

I put a chunk of my lump sum payment in a savings account, but interest rates are terrible right now. I get a much better return on my TFSA (tax free savings account, a Canadian thing) which is invested, but because I opened the account in my home province, I can't transfer funds into it from my grad school province. Which is extremely frustrating because I could be making a much higher return on some of this money

I don't know how to feel about this. Haha. I should have more work to do

Professor 2 for sure. I think it would in fact be suspicious to not have your thesis adviser write you a LoR. I am currently applying for an external scholarship, and have just started my Master's so my supervisor doesn't know me very well, nonetheless is it is essentially required that he write me a LoR for this scholarship. Otherwise people suspect why your supervisor isn't recommending you.

I honestly think it might hurt you and distract from the other strong aspects of your application. I find even tolerant people are uncomfortable with the unfamiliar, and to many people, transgendered individuals are unfamiliar to them. This could cause your application to be viewed differently (even subconsciously on the part of the reviewer). That being said, I'm sure you don't want to go to a school that wouldn't accept you as who you are, so you obviously wouldn't even want to consider the schools that would deny you because of your gender identity. But I think the fact that your research focuses on gender identity and genetics, and you will mention this in your SOP, would rule out those bad schools regardless.

I really don't think that Canadian schools are any more competitive than most American schools, and are definitely less competitive than the top American schools. There might be some less competitive American schools, but those would be typically thought of as lower quality.

^ They will sometimes grant exceptions for international transcripts that are difficult to get. Hopefully you have an official copy though, because they might ask you to get a certified photocopy.

This looks like it's a lot better than my Excel spreadsheets! But they both basically serve the same function. I always suspect programs like these of selling your personal information though.

I think they might even be required to put that. I noticed that on a recent job posting in my department, but they would probably just take the best candidate regardless. If there are two equally strong candidates, the Canadian or permanent resident will probably be preferred because it's easier.

You should be able to look up that information. When I was applying to jobs in Germany I was easily able to find that info, and I believe there was some EU template I used. You could also look to see if you can find any professor's CVs online, that would give you the template you need as well.

I'm going to second the opinion that you need to take more math courses. I've taken more math courses than you and I'm just a plain ol' engineer. Your math background is really quite limited.

I would expect someone to at least know what it's graded out of, or have the ability to look it up. It's pretty clear she wanted to brag about her verbal score, but asking about her quantitative score was legitimate. I think it's just this one sentence that does it: "I'm a really humble person who mistrusts her own successes, so I don't want to celebrate too early, but 750-800 verbal is pretty good, right?"

I use plain ol' Excel to make my budget and to keep track of my spending. Works very well. I track each category, what I've spent that month, and what I have left to spend that month. After I subtract lump sum expenses such as travel, tuition and books and gifts, I'm left with $1500/month to spend on rent, food, and luxuries. I've seen this as the recommended distribution for your budget: http://www.debtfreedestiny.com/budgeting/recommended-budget-percentages-and-guidelines/ My housing is 33% (utilities included), food 22%, transit 7%, entertainment 9%, clothing 5% and some other miscellaneous items. My food costs are high, but I'm a very committed athlete and I need to be well fed, and that's what it costs to do that. I save 10%, which is the recommended amount. I always pack a lunch, but go out for dinner and out for drink every once in a while.

I just found out only 3/15 of the PhD students my supervisor has graduated have gone on to be profs, and I don't think he likes that very much. Kind of explains some of the questions he's asked me about my future goals. Clearly both paths are supported here, although I think he'd like a few more people to go the academia route.

I would just list one. I tailored my SOP for one school very specifically to the one professor I had spoken with, yet I still had several other professors contact me about my application after I submitted it.

I think you would be wasting space in your SOP if you just list articles you've read. There should be no need to mention specific articles at all, just show that you have a general idea of the research the professor does. Everybody recommends that you tailor these sorts of things, whether for jobs or grad school applications, but the degree to which you tailor it is up to you. You could write each one from scratch or have a template of sorts. I've almost always used some sort of template for all of my scholarship and grad school applications and have been fairly successful.

It depends on what you put on your resume. I made it quite clear on the first page of my CV what relevant experience I had that would make me a good fit for the grad program I was applying to. He could have read past that page, but if he didn't want to, he got the info he needed. For the schools I was applying to I wouldn't have even been accepted without a professor accepting me first. The "adcom" just makes sure you meet minimum grade requirements, I'm pretty sure. So the e-mail to the PI was very important.

It's like you're implying that you don't trust their judgement. When you ask them in the first place, you should ask them if they can write a STRONG letter, and if they say yes, you're trusting them to do so. If you don't trust them, then maybe you should find another letter writer. I know this isn't easy, and I struggled to get references at one point in my undergraduate career, but have quickly learned how important they are.

That's good news. Sounds like they really wanted to accept you but had to make you jump through a few hoops first

It would be extremely inappropriate for you to open the letter, and even more inappropriate to ask the school about the contents of the letter. It's a very strange request to make. I also think you are being way too paranoid, I can guarantee there is almost no way that he would say bad things. That being said, one of my reference letters for a major scholarship was shown to me and was quite weak. But I got the scholarship. It was my own fault as I didn't have strong references then, but I do now, and a reference letter he wrote for me later was MUCH better. So I can kind of understand your concern, but that's the nature of LoRs. The best you can do is try to develop a good relationship and try to guide the letter writer as much as possible. In the past I have even gone so far as to write a draft for them (at their request) or to specifically point out things I think they should highlight.

Are you able to pop into the professor's offices? I know SO many absent-minded professors who really do better in face-to-face interaction. Otherwise it wouldn't hurt to send another e-mail to all the professors in questions. When did you send your first e-mail? Keep in mind that summers are a busy time for professors because they are travelling a lot to conferences, and then September is also busy because school is starting. Do you have another boss? Or is your workplace small? I would use your co-worker as a last resort. Keep annoying people until they give you an answer. It isn't unreasonable to expect a yes or no answer.

You need to explain why you want to do the degree, why at that school, and why you would be a good candidate. They might ask you to answer some specific questions, but that should be the general message of your SOP. Even if you're not doing research you're obviously planning on learning something and you're planning on doing something with that knowledge. Explain what those somethings are.

I'm a Canadian in a Canadian school (aerospace engineering). 1) I think in general it's easier for all programs to admit local students, but my current department has 30% international students. A few from the states 2) I don't think it would be any more difficult for you as an American than if you were Canadian

I would if I had any. A publication is a publication

I wouldn't be apologetic, it might make you look a bit pathetic. Just refer to your previous e-mail (maybe reply to on your previous e-mail so that it's shown on the bottom) and re-ask your question.

Victoria is NOT cold. It's coastal and barely has a winter (from my standards, I'm from Edmonton, AB). I was there last February and was outside in a T-shirt. That should be easier for you to adjust to. Hamilton on the other hand can get quite cold. I'm currently living in Toronto but haven't spent a winter here, but I know the winters are milder than Edmonton. But you will still be looking at some days of -20 and that feels very cold because it's humid. In contrast Edmonton can get to -40 but it's dry so while it is still f-ing cold, you can at least bundle up. A "wet cold" is more difficult to handle, but if you buy appropriate clothing (warm jacket, boots, gloves, hat, scarf, longjohns, etc.) you can survive. There are a ton of people who move here from warmer climates. Employment scenario I have no idea about, but it is extremely easy to work in any province in Canada regardless of what province you graduated from.